iota
War Child
I am starting to understand HTDAAB as The Repentance and Redemption of The Fly.
The last album was admittedly merely a collection of songs. This is a U2 ALBUM and it seems to pick up where the last trilogy left off. Vertigo is The Fly coming to grips with his depravity. I always sensed a connection between the feeling of vertigo and the Biblical Fall of Mankind (where by eating of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve "became like God" but rose up to such a height that in their mortal frame they couldn't handle, and fell spiritually.) The fact that The Fly sees Jesus around the neck of a prostitute is significant and points to the fact that even in the darkest hour, even briefly, light can be glimpsed, superficial as it may be. But in that Jesus around the harlot's neck, the main character begins to yearn for the home he left so long ago.
The rest of the album deals with mortality, death and the sense that one must become a child again in order to see God. The Miracle Drug is salvation, and the condition of the man in the wheelchair is the spiritual condition of all men. The man who Bono wrote this songs about is a metaphor for all of us. Haunted by beauty but unable to fully reflect it in our broken state.
Sometimes You Can't Make it is a realization at someone's deathbed that we leave this place alone and whatever we face after life we face alone, which is a terrifying thought. Yet we can take comfort in the fact that we are here together, and don't have to go it alone here.
Love and Peace shows that even though we are all here together, we don't naturally wish each other well, in fact we show our fallenness in how nation relates to nation (and the fact that there ARE nations pointing nukes at each other perpetually)..in this song we are all told to lay down what we cling to, in order to correct this wrong.
City of Blinding Lights is about trying to regain one's innocence. The City has always represented seduction to Bono's character, but this song is about remembering that initial loss of innocence, and Bono makes references to the boy inside the man and the girl he loves as being an innocent love. He revisits the city of Nighttown only to find that in this new state of mind as he comes closer to redemption, the city is actually teeming with light. "kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight" is a phrase that comes to mind. He revisits his darkness and finds it to be a place of light, love and beauty, only he just now realizes it.
All Because of you....The Fly comes home. It is a rebirth. It is the Born Again experience. Re-entering the womb is the imagery as Jesus describes it in John 3. And the fact that I AM (the sacred name of God we translate from Yahweh) comes into play shows that the burning bush has ignited in this character's heart and he is forever renewed. The music itself SOUNDS like a burning bush. And the fact that when Moses heard a voice from the burning bush that identified itself as "I Am That I Am" (or YHWH 'yahweh') is noteworthy.
A Man and A Woman could be this character which has struggled with thoughts of infidelity both spiritually and physically overcome with a desire to be true to his pure love and in doing so becomes true to his God that he feels has left him. He calls his love "little sister" because he realizes that they have their humanity in common and are related in that sense.
Crumbs is the backlash against the religious system that has screwed him up in the first place. Bono's character (or Bono himself most likely) distances himself from the religious mainstream while not distancing himself from the love and compassion of Jesus, whom these people claim to follow.
One step closer is the eerie hymn to the uncertainty of death and what comes next. All religious experience stems from what this song so hauntingly expresses.
Original of the Species is CRUCIAL. Yes, it is a song written to one of Edge's daughters but it is written to each of us as well. Remain a child in your heart. As when Jesus told His disciple that in order to enter the Kingdom of God, one must become like a child, otherwise it's impossible. This is the exortation of this song.
And Yahweh. Needs little explaination. The prayer of the scoundrel for God's forgiveness, regeneration and love. It is significant that it is to Yahweh and not just "God." It is to the God of the Bible, not the God of modern spirituality. They didn't have to write it to Yahweh, they could have just used the word "God" but the fact that they didn't speaks volumes.
The last album was admittedly merely a collection of songs. This is a U2 ALBUM and it seems to pick up where the last trilogy left off. Vertigo is The Fly coming to grips with his depravity. I always sensed a connection between the feeling of vertigo and the Biblical Fall of Mankind (where by eating of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve "became like God" but rose up to such a height that in their mortal frame they couldn't handle, and fell spiritually.) The fact that The Fly sees Jesus around the neck of a prostitute is significant and points to the fact that even in the darkest hour, even briefly, light can be glimpsed, superficial as it may be. But in that Jesus around the harlot's neck, the main character begins to yearn for the home he left so long ago.
The rest of the album deals with mortality, death and the sense that one must become a child again in order to see God. The Miracle Drug is salvation, and the condition of the man in the wheelchair is the spiritual condition of all men. The man who Bono wrote this songs about is a metaphor for all of us. Haunted by beauty but unable to fully reflect it in our broken state.
Sometimes You Can't Make it is a realization at someone's deathbed that we leave this place alone and whatever we face after life we face alone, which is a terrifying thought. Yet we can take comfort in the fact that we are here together, and don't have to go it alone here.
Love and Peace shows that even though we are all here together, we don't naturally wish each other well, in fact we show our fallenness in how nation relates to nation (and the fact that there ARE nations pointing nukes at each other perpetually)..in this song we are all told to lay down what we cling to, in order to correct this wrong.
City of Blinding Lights is about trying to regain one's innocence. The City has always represented seduction to Bono's character, but this song is about remembering that initial loss of innocence, and Bono makes references to the boy inside the man and the girl he loves as being an innocent love. He revisits the city of Nighttown only to find that in this new state of mind as he comes closer to redemption, the city is actually teeming with light. "kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight" is a phrase that comes to mind. He revisits his darkness and finds it to be a place of light, love and beauty, only he just now realizes it.
All Because of you....The Fly comes home. It is a rebirth. It is the Born Again experience. Re-entering the womb is the imagery as Jesus describes it in John 3. And the fact that I AM (the sacred name of God we translate from Yahweh) comes into play shows that the burning bush has ignited in this character's heart and he is forever renewed. The music itself SOUNDS like a burning bush. And the fact that when Moses heard a voice from the burning bush that identified itself as "I Am That I Am" (or YHWH 'yahweh') is noteworthy.
A Man and A Woman could be this character which has struggled with thoughts of infidelity both spiritually and physically overcome with a desire to be true to his pure love and in doing so becomes true to his God that he feels has left him. He calls his love "little sister" because he realizes that they have their humanity in common and are related in that sense.
Crumbs is the backlash against the religious system that has screwed him up in the first place. Bono's character (or Bono himself most likely) distances himself from the religious mainstream while not distancing himself from the love and compassion of Jesus, whom these people claim to follow.
One step closer is the eerie hymn to the uncertainty of death and what comes next. All religious experience stems from what this song so hauntingly expresses.
Original of the Species is CRUCIAL. Yes, it is a song written to one of Edge's daughters but it is written to each of us as well. Remain a child in your heart. As when Jesus told His disciple that in order to enter the Kingdom of God, one must become like a child, otherwise it's impossible. This is the exortation of this song.
And Yahweh. Needs little explaination. The prayer of the scoundrel for God's forgiveness, regeneration and love. It is significant that it is to Yahweh and not just "God." It is to the God of the Bible, not the God of modern spirituality. They didn't have to write it to Yahweh, they could have just used the word "God" but the fact that they didn't speaks volumes.